Apple recently announced that they are planning to update iOS and OS X soft keyboard emoji characters with a new and more diverse selection. Japan was the first to introduce emojis as an alternative to text-based emoticons. They convey feelings through pictures instead of through words and became extremely popular. However, MTV Act questioned the issue of why with such a large selection of human characters available, most were of Caucasian decent.

Tim forwarded your email to me. We agree with you. Our emoji characters are based on the Unicode standard, which is necessary for them to be displayed properly across many platforms. There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard.

Apple’s current list of emojis has many different characters ranging from faces to symbols and foods. But many are questioning why there is a lack of diversity in ethnicity being portrayed in these popular pictures. There are a few different ethnic representations available right now, which include Chinese, Russians, and Indians. Other races have not yet made their way to the platform but it seems like Apple is working on changing that.

The Verge has noted that in Apple’s last emoji character update for iOS 6, same sex couples and families were brought onto the platform.

I agree. So stupid. We just want to quickly convey an emotion, not flip through a dozen different happy faces all colored different, reminding us of our race. What if they put the white people on the first page and the Indian people on the last page? This race junk will never end. Just make them bright yellow and stylized, depicting ONE nonexistent race - That would remind us that race doesn't matter, only unity - it's the least racist option!